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CCCA_V6No1_Profiles-FIN_CCCA_V1No1_Profile-FIN.qxd 2/13/12 9:26 PM Page 22 Profile threshold is when you start dreaming in juristes d’expression française de three girls, Des Rosiers’s immediate family the other language.” l’Ontario. Honours include the Médaille was small, considering that her father had After getting her LL.M., she moved to de l’Université Paris X in 2007 and the 10 siblings and her mother was the London, Ont., was called to the youngest of 17 children. Ontario bar and practised civil As a teenager, Des Rosiers litigation at Lerner & Associates. ... [I]f things had been worked in her father’s office along In 1987, she joined the law facul- “ with other family members, ty at the University of Western slightly different, I probably would including her mother. “It was a Ontario, and taught there until busy, busy place. It was a very small 2000, at which point she became have become a notary. office, very family-managed. I president of the Law Commission ” loved it,” she says. of Canada. Four years later, she “But for the fact that I had great was appointed dean of the University of Medal of the Law Society of Upper marks in constitutional law and I got to go Ottawa’s faculty of law — civil law section, Canada in 1999. to the Supreme Court, if things had been a position she held until 2008. She remains All of this is a long way from Rosemont, slightly different I probably would have a member of the faculty. in east Montreal, where her father’s notary become a notary. But life just unfolded Des Rosiers’s background also includes practice — and the family’s apartment, until differently for me.” terms as president of several organiza- Des Rosiers was six months old — was tions, including the Canadian Council of located above the local credit union, across Paula Kulig is a freelance writer based Law Deans and the Association des the street from the church. The eldest of in Toronto. WE CAN HANDLE ANY PITCH. LITIGATIONBOUTIQUE.COM WOODS LLP LITIGATION . ARBITRATION . CLASS ACTION 2000 MGILL COLLEGE AVE. SUITE 1700 MONTREAL, QUEBEC H3A 3H3 T. 5149824545 22 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association SPRING 2012